Tag Archives: paper

Benjamin and friends took part at the Singapore Mini Maker Faire last year at SCAPE, where they showcased the origami works they have done, and introduced the art of paper folding to visitors of the Faire.

He shared that he started folding origami some 20 years back when he came across a Chinese book on origami. His interest developed after having folded the models from this book, and he bought a second book “Teach Yourself Origami” by Robert Harbin, which showed him that there is a lot more to origami than the traditional models. His interest has sustained until today.

Benjamin has his own origami website here. He and his friends are also members of the group “Origami Singapore”, an informal gathering of origami enthusiasts in Singapore.

Takeaway from SMMF13 and advice for first time participating maker

When asked about his takeaway from his involvement in the Singapore Mini Maker Faire last year, Benjamin shared that it is a good platform for makers to meet each other. During the event, he learnt that there are many people making different kind of things. He also observed that there were many children participants and he hope to see more adults showing interest as well.

As a word of advice, he would like to remind all first time participating makers to make good use of their set-up time, and also to take the time to walk around no matter how busy you are at your booth. He felt that it would be important to also learn from other makers and make friends with them.

Good maker spirit, Benjamin! We hope you get to know more makers this time round! Who knows what kind of exciting new projects you might end up doing together?

I had an interesting chat with Pooja on the afternoon before she went back to New York for her break.

Although Pooja ran a workshop on concertina-spine binding last year at the Singapore Mini Maker Faire 2013, I had no chance to meet up with her and speak with her. I had written a blog post then to introduce her based on some email exchanges, so this time round, I was glad to be able to arrange a chit-chat session.

Pooja offered to use a co-working space she has reserved. It is called Grey Projects and the location was at Kim Tian, Tiong Bahru. It is a nice quiet place and it also happened to be the day before an exhibition of self-published books that the Grey Projects has planned. So, thanks to Pooja, I had a quick glimpse of this interesting exhibition’s behind-the-scene preparation!

Opinion of the Singapore Maker Movement

As it is Pooja’s third-year experience at the Singapore Mini Maker Faire (she was a visitor in the first year!), I was rather interested to find out her view of the maker movement here in Singapore. Compared to when Pooja first came to Singapore, she felt that the maker movement here had became more organised. She observes more ground-up efforts, more meet-up sessions, more people trying their hands on DIY stuff. She remarked that it is a dramatic development.

When asked whether there is any community that she thinks we can still reach out to, Pooja gave an interesting reply. Instead of highlighting a hobby group (which I was expecting), Pooja replied that we should look into programmes that can reach the senior citizens and the National Servicemen, based on her own observation at the classes she conducts for the National Arts Council (NAC). She elaborated that these two communities seem to have a lot of interest to pick up new skills. So, for makers out there, keep a look out for chances to reach out to these two communities!

Portfolio-making workshop

Pooja will run a workshop to create a cloth-covered portfolio for holding stationery, drawings, photographs and so forth, using luscious book cloth and beautiful Japanese Chiyogami papers.

Her workshop will be held on 27 July, Sunday, 2.45pm – 4.15pm at the Singapore Mini Maker Faire at Senja-Cashew CC and you can find the registration site here.

Special Highlight : Bookbinding Day and Collaborative Installation

Besides conducting a workshop, Pooja is also participating in this year’s Maker Faire in two different ways. In three weeks’ time, Pooja will be part of the SMMF2014: Bookbinding Day where she joins Ian Tan, Mariko Watanabe and S T Leng in a series of bookbinding workshops to teach different bookbinding projects.

Pooja will also be embarking on an exciting project for all visitors of the Singapore Mini Maker Faire, where everyone gets a chance to participate and create a “folded element” of a collaborative-sculpture book object. On the first day of the Faire, Pooja will be personally guiding interested visitors on the project from the opening of the event until 1pm. She will also be around on Sunday, both to conduct her bookbinding workshop from 2.45pm to 4.15pm and to conclude her collaborative project towards the end of the event. It’ll be another exciting component of this year’s Singapore Mini Maker Faire. If you are not able to drop by when Pooja is around, do not worry as we will also have volunteers who will help to guide you. Do come join us and have some fun creating!

Want to know what other things Pooja do? You can check out her blog here.

So, who is Zhu Kening, and what is this techno paper craft his friend/supporter mentioned?

We interview Zhu Kening and feature him as our next Maker of the Singapore Mini Maker Faire 2012.

I thought it was a joke about a dancing paper initially but it turned out that I was wrong. It is really a dancing paper. To be more precise, the project is on paper-crafts such as origami or pop-up that can move through wireless inductive power transmission. I was totally awed by the description alone, and I was looking forward to meet up with the Maker for an interview, and to witness how this would be done.

About Zhu Ke Ning (also known as Ken)

Through my earlier email correspondences with Ken, Ken had shared that as a kid, he liked to dismantle things like radio sets, lamps, toys and re-assemble them together, build models and customise Tamiya racing cars. Ken gave credit to his father for cultivating his interest in DIY, by being a role model for him. Currently, Ken is a fourth year PhD student at the National University of Singapore and the “dancing paper-craft” is his research project this year. Ken enjoys working on exciting and crazy scientific ideas. As he enjoys building paper models and folding origami, he decided to incorporate them into his PhD research topic and try to make them move by itself like robots.

The Meeting

Maker Ken with his prototypes

William (Our in-house maker!) and I met up with Zhu Ke Ning, also known as Ken, at Keio-NUS CUTE Centre where he showed us his prototypes.

Ken showed us how the paper craft and inch worm can move, with the help of shape memory-alloys and an inductive power system that can power up the specific moving part of the paper-craft to generate movements. Check out his YouTube video of the moving paper craft and inch worm.When asked about his plans for this project, Ken shared that he would like to make this an open-source project. He would like to further improve on his prototype such that the power system could be made into a printed circuit board (PCB) that could be downloaded and used by others eventually.

Paper crane with shape-memory alloys

Inductive Power System underneath the glass table

The Presentation and Workshop

Ken would share the details in his presentation during the Singapore Mini Maker Faire and also conduct a workshop where participants can learn how to attach their shape-memory materials to paper-crafts and make them move. The attendees will learn how to make moving paper structure, such as crane, dog, inchworm, without any battery or direct power supply connection. More details about the moving paper craft and inchworm can also be found on Ken’s website at http://www.tech-ken.com/

Ken’s workshop is fully booked, but do come down for his presentation on Saturday 4 August, 3 pm!

Ken’s view on the Maker Scene in Singapore

Ken felt that the Maker/ DIY culture in Singapore is quite good, not only in high-tech areas but also in daily life. He sometimes see people making their own furniture, or fixing their house by themselves. He also saw children making their own cards when they want to play card games. He see it as a part of the Maker Culture.

According to Ken, to popularise the culture in Singapore, people have to switch their mentality, to have the desire to turn their ideas into reality, to want to solve their problem in a smart way, to dare to try and to learn to work with limited resources. Maker culture should be integrated into day to day life.

Ken also shared that there are many colleagues in his lab in NUS who are into DIY activities, and it is facilitated by the equipments available in the lab such as laser cutter and 3D printer because they can quickly prototype their ideas.

He felt that the Singapore Mini Maker Faire will be a good opportunity for interactions between Makers.

If you are keen to attend Ken’s workshop and hear his presentation, come for the Singapore Mini Maker Faire 2012 on 4 & 5 August 2012! If you have your own paper craft which you would like to use for the workshop, Ken also welcome you to bring it along!

[Note: Target age group for the workshop would be 20 years old and above.]